This course will focus understanding and implementing control
architectures for mobile robots that operate autonomously to accomplish
specific tasks. The class will combine theory and practice, including the
study of successful robot architectures and our own implementations.

We will use Player/Stage/Gazebo, an open-source robot simulation package
and driver system. This will allow us to develop control programs for
simulated robots, including the ability to process robot-centric camera
views and laser ranger data. You will develop a control program for a
simulated robot in a simulated world, and then be able to seamlessly run
that control program on our actual robot running in the real world. The
use of the simulation tools are essential, given the amount of work
involved in creating successful control programs and the relatively low
availability of live robot time in the field.

Robot control tasks will be driven by the two main challenges of the
annual Intelligent Ground Vehicles Competition: the navigation challenge,
which involves visiting waypoints in a 1-acre field given GPS data and the
presence of barrels, sawhorses, and other physical obstacles, and the
autonomous challenge, which requires the robot to stay inside a pair of
painted lines in a one-tenth mile outdoor course. See www.igvc.org for
more details.

This year's IGVC competition will be held June 5–8, 2009. All students who
participate in the CSMR course will be invited to make the road trip to
Oakland, Michigan (just north of Detroit) to enter the contest. Funding to
support the trip will be available.

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